Sunday Scribblings: So long to all that (Goodbye)

We all know them—those people who shed lives, careers, friends, loves, with a grace that recalls snakes dancing out of their skins. People who leave others with a bit of wistfulness, a bit of longing, but mostly a sense of being blessed to have been a part of this experience, even if its over now.

I am not one of these people.

It’s always been hard for me, saying goodbye, even to temp jobs I've hated. Perhaps because I always feel like I’m being left behind, so why speed up the inevitable? Friends I have loved, careers I was sure would fulfill me, cities where I thought I might live forever…until everything changes. Again. So I cling to them all, in my mind, shoving the memories into my overstuffed mental closet—trying to hold on to the smell of my first boyfriend’s hair after a rainstorm, the tingling in my belly as I walked out of a job interview in my wobbly high heels, the dizzying breathlessness as I stared out of the curved airplane window, watching California grow smaller and distorted.

It’s not that I can’t stand the idea of change. But I hate the idea that I need to LOSE anything in order for that change to take effect in my life. Yes, I could give away that long vintage dress that will probably never fit me again, but then will I also have to lose the girl who wore it, perusing used book tables in the Village, wearing daisies in her hair? If I lose her, what takes her place?

So I cling. I grasp. And yet, I continue to have to say goodbye. Goodbye to old selves, to lost freedom, stories that ended, to opportunities that have moseyed their way down the road and away from me. And none of my fearful clinging keeps those things at my side.

I wonder if some of my writing and life problems are the result of not being able to say goodbye to that ideal of the perfect novel that only lives in my head, to that ideal of the life full of elements which seemed wonderful at age 21 but now feel…wrong?

Not that my inability to say goodbye has brought me nothing but pain. I choose to stay committed to TEG everyday, even when it feels like we’re only moving through vapors of who we once were. I chose to stay alive during those dreadful days in college, when so much of me wanted simply to die. I choose to show up to the page, again, and again, in spite of feeling unworthy and devoid of thought or inspiration. I refuse to say goodbye to my oldest, deepest dream of being a writer, even when it feels that the dream has said adios to me.

But it strikes me that this fear of goodbye (bad-byes) betrays a fundamental distrust in the Universe, a belief that I had better hold on TIGHT, because I don’t deserve what I’ve got now, so who knows if I’ll be able to find something close to it in the future.

And I have proof that belief is not true. I have a gift that grows to fill the world. I have Madam.

I watch her now as her gait grows steady and sure, as her hands move purposefully towards what she wants. She is saying goodbye to her babyhood without a second glance, despite my longing to hold her back there for just a moment. Watching her with my love for her a physical thing, a pressure in my gut that shifts like the weight of love immobile. Every day, I am forced to learn and relearn how to say goodbye to her and hello to her crowing joyful newness.

Can I learn that about my life as well?
_________________________
For more hellos about goodbyes, go here.